


Dungeons, Dippers, and Derailing

by rindomness



Series: The (Mis)Adventures of Sam Reese [8]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), DDnMD Crew, Dipper Has A Hard Time, Gen, Sam Arc, cherries, dnd fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27980991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rindomness/pseuds/rindomness
Summary: Sam makes a new friend early in the Spring semester of college. Dipper has a crisis.
Relationships: Alcor the Dreambender & Ayala Pines, Alcor the Dreambender & Silver Wills, Sam Reese & Alcor the Dreambender, Sam Reese & Ayala Pines, Sam Reese & Silver Wills
Series: The (Mis)Adventures of Sam Reese [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985777
Kudos: 40





	Dungeons, Dippers, and Derailing

**Author's Note:**

> So this was. Weirdly hard to write. But I'm happy with it how it came out after some messing around with the ending and points of view.  
> Hope you guys like it too!

Sam met the girl during the first day of her second semester preternatural studies class. She had been late, and she blamed it entirely on Dipper for distracting her. Dipper would deny any kind of influence in Sam entering the classroom on the first day of class five minutes late, or for accidentally turning off her alarm. It didn’t matter, though, because it had totally been his fault, and now Sam was going to be late.

She slid into a seat beside a redhead, who then glanced up to her.

“Hey,” Sam breathed, falling back into the seat. “Do you want me to move?”

The redhead shook her head. “No, you’re good. Slept in?”

Sam smiled. “Something like that.”

“Here, you can share my syllabus until we can get you your own.”

“Thanks. I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Ayala. Nice to meet you, Sam.”

“You too.”

The two girls scanned the syllabus as the professor talked at the front of the room. On the whole, it wasn’t all that much different from the other first-class experiences that Sam had had so far, so while she paid attention, it wasn’t the closest attention.

When they got out of class, Ayala offered to copy her syllabus for Sam. As the pair of them walked out of the building, Sam was struck by how tall the other girl was. She had to be pushing six feet, a couple of inches off if that. This woman had almost a foot on Sam, which was just a little unsettling.

Sam was used to people being taller than her, of course. She was five-nothing and so was constantly surrounded by people who were taller than her. Still, though, Ayala was tall even by average standards. A redheaded tree with impeccable fashion sense.

“Do you want a copy of my syllabus?” Ayala spoke up, breaking Sam out of her thoughts.

“I mean... that would be useful, but I don’t want you to go out of your way to make one-”

Ayala waved her off.

“Seriously, don’t worry about it. Happy to help. See you later?”

Sam nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

“If not earlier, of course.” She smiled. “Later!”

Ayala was probably nice, Sam decided. Nice, if freakishly tall.

* * *

They had, in fact, met up on Wednesday briefly before class. Ayala handed Sam a copy of the syllabus, and Sam nodded as she sat down and got out her laptop. Ayala had her own laptop, though it was... notably clunkier than Sam’s. Clunkier than... most laptops Sam had seen in recent years.

Must be old.

Sam was typing up notes from the lecture at the front of the room when Ayala spoke up quietly beside her.

“So, hey, I have this afternoon free if you wanted to get lunch or something?”

Sam blinked.

“I mean, sure? I’ll have to let Tyrone and Silver know, though.”

“Are they your friends?”

“Yeah. Friends slash roommates. Kind of. It’s... the situation with Tyrone is weird but he basically lives at our apartment. It’s fine, it’s just a... relatively small apartment, so it can get a little crowded when he leaves his stuff lying around.”

Ayala snickered.

“I know  _ all _ about crowded. Try living in the same house as your, like, seventeen cousins and your brother because your family runs their business out of the house and this includes your aunt, who will  _ not _ stop adopting kids.”

Sam snickered, now.

“What business is that?”

“My family runs the Stanley Pines Memorial Library in-”

“Holy shit, are you a Pines?”

“Um... Yeah...? Why?”

“Like, a  _ Pines, _ like, Mabel and-” Mabel.

Dipper, you dummy.

“That’s the one. That’s... pretty far back, so it’s gotten a little muddied throughout the years, but that’s definitely it. My... I want to call it a ‘branch’ even though my dad says that’s really nerdy, but that ‘branch’ of the Pines family decided to stay at the Library since the Transcendence. It’s... it’s fun, but as I said, crowded.”

“ _ Okay _ , Silver’s gonna want to meet you.”

“Oh?”

“I won’t call it an obsession because that has some negative connotations but their  _ thing _ is Alcor and the Transcendence and they’ve got, like, the  _ entire _ set of published works from Stanford Pines on our bookshelf.”

“Oh, woah, neat! I should meet them, then. I’ll leave that up to you, though, since they’re your friend and all...”

Sam nodded. “I’ll... hey, I’ll ask my DDnD group if I could invite you over for our session on Friday? We were planning on doing a one-off with new characters because Tyrone really wanted to DM.”

“I mean, I don’t want to intrude on your guys’s-”

“That’s why I’d be asking them first.”

“If... I mean, if it’s alright with your group, I’d love to.” Ayala smiled, and Sam smiled back.

“Awesome. I’ll let you know before class Friday by the latest?”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * *

The two of them did end up meeting up for lunch, although it wasn’t the longest meetup because Ayala had to run to a class, and Sam really did need to work on her assignments. Before Ayala left, they had exchanged numbers, and then Ayala really did have to go because she was already risking being late. They said goodbye, and then the parted ways.

Sam had stopped by the quiet spot after lunch to work, joined not long after by Silver.

“Hey,” Silver said, sitting down on the opposite bench. Sam looked up from her computer and waved.

“What’s up?”

“Not a whole lot. We got our first big assignment in my writing class, though.”

“Oh, neat.”

“It’s... it’s iffy, but I’ll manage.”

“If you need help, Alcor and I are usually right there.”

“Thanks for the offer. I should be alright but if I run into problems, I’ll remember to ask for help.”

“Speaking of Alcor, kind of?” Sam said.

“Hm?’

“I was wondering if you’d mind if I invited someone to our session on Friday?”

“I mean... technically, it’s open, I think. I’ll ask Sazi but it should be fine, though. Give me a second.”

Sam waited as Silver typed out a message on their tablet, then as the two of them waiting for Sazi to get back to Silver. When it came, Silver gave Sam a thumbs-up.

“Your friend is good since you’re vouching for them.”

Sam smiled.

“Awesome. Thanks, Silver.”

They worked quietly from that point onwards, until Sam had to go to her last class of the day. Before she left, though, she sent Ayala a text letting her know she could come to the session on Friday.

* * *

It was Friday afternoon, and Dipper blipped into the main room of Sam’s apartment with a kind of giddy glee that only came from designing an adventure. He hadn’t actually ran a session for... wow, a couple hundred years now. He was excited. Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons was one of the few things that he could still enjoy mostly blindly, omnipotence or no. There was no real way to tell how any given session would go, and sure, he could know the entire campaign’s basic story and all the maps, but nothing could remove that element of pure chaos that came from playing with other people.

He was putting the absolute finishing touches on his maps when there was a knock at the door, and Dipper quickly swapped from his usual appearance to be Tyrone Birch again. Sam answered the door, and Dipper barely had to look to see that it was Sazi and Devon on the other side of the door.

“Hey! Come on in, we’re just finishing getting set up.”

“Is your friend still coming?”

“Yeah, she should be.”

Dipper looked up from where he was sitting behind the DM screen.

“Wait, when did this happen?” He had never heard that Sam was inviting someone else. He could probably just use is omnipotence here, but... he was trying to be human. Human-ish.

“A couple of days ago... oh, shoot, did I forget to mention-”

“I think you forgot to tell him,” Sazi said, smiling.

“Right. Yeah, I invited a friend from my history class. She’s cool and if she ends up not being cool then you can blame it on me.”

“Sounds fair. Right, let’s see, Tyrone knows what he’s doing?”

“Excuse you, I’ve been planning this for a week. It’s going to rock, trust me.” Dipper stared at the three of them from behind the screen, affronted. “I can’t believe you would doubt me.”

“Well, I’m excited,” Devon said. “He’s been surprisingly secretive about it but I can hear him snickering over it sometimes at the end of class.”

Sam shut the door. “He’s been evil-laughing over there for the past twenty minutes so he’s got something planned. Does someone want to help me get snacks out?”

“I’ve got it, Sam,” Silver said, getting up from their spot at the table. “Just hang out.”

“Got it. Thanks, Sil.”

“No problem.”

The five of them talked about nothing in particular for the next few minutes before the next knock came. Sam got up to get it. Dipper couldn’t see through the door now, since there were people in the way, but Sam seemed to brighten across the room.

“Hey! Didn’t get too lost?”

A new voice, one he didn’t really recognize, responded. “No, it wasn’t that bad. I don’t know if this is a normal thing to do but I brought some cherry tarts, it’s cherry season and I’ve got too many.”

“Oh, wow, that’s amazing. We usually just have, like, chips and crackers around but... wow, this is... oh, gosh, come in, I’m so sorry-”

There was a laugh, a quiet, bell-like sound. “Don’t worry about it.” She stepped through the door, and Sam shut it.

Dipper saw the woman who walked through the door and it was like the world around him dulled, the conversation falling to a blurry mumble in his ears.  


White antlers bearing swinging, red cherries curved down around her ears, her bright red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was holding a box, probably with the tarts she had mentioned earlier, but all Dipper could hear in his head was a rush of  _ Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry- _

Sam smacked the back of his head.

“Say hi like a person, dork.”

“Right. Hi! I- Yes, I’m Tyrone.” That was really lame. Focus.

“It’s nice to meet you, Tyrone. I’m Ayala.”

Ayala. So that was his- her name this time around. He stared at the cherries on her antlers.

Cherries grew on trees, right?  


“No, yeah, cherry trees are a thing.”

Dipper didn’t realize he had said it out loud until Sam broke the silence.

“What?”

“Cherries-” Dipper started, before backing up. “I couldn’t remember if cherries grew on trees or not.”

“Why?”

“You can See them?” Ayala cut in. He could. So she had the Sight, too, she could see her own antlers, so many couldn’t-

He nodded, awkwardly.

“Oh, this is great! Usually it’s just Iris and I who can See them, but she’s five and doesn’t have a great grip on personal space...”

“What? Someone catch me up to speed, please.” Sam looked between Dipper and Ayala.

“I have antlers which grow cherries. No one at my place has any clue why.”

His fault, back when Henry was alive and he didn’t know what he was doing. He still didn't entirely know how it had happened, either. Or why his reincarnations all had them.  


He didn’t say any of that.

“Wait, no one? Don’t you guys run-”

“I mean we  _ do, _ and there’s this one story about Mabel’s husband but none of us really know if it’s true anymore or-”

“I’m sorry, did you say Mabel? You... you wouldn’t happen to mean Mabel  _ Pines, _ would you?” Dipper cut in. No way. There was no way, that would be too much of a coincidence.

“Yeah, actually.”

Dipper was quiet.

She was.

_ Ayala Pines Henry Ayala- _

“Wait, you’re related to  _ Mabel Pines? _ ” Silver spoke up, snapping him out of it.

“Distantly, but yes. We still run the Library in Gravity Falls, actually.”

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Sam did you  _ know- _ ”

“Don’t overwhelm her, Sil-”

“It’s alright, Sam. Hey, if you want to talk about it more after the session, I’d love to!”

That was the reminder everyone needed that they were here to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. Dipper cleared his throat.

“Right, yeah, that’s- a thing we’re doing.”

“Dude, can you DM? You seem... distracted.”

“Yeah, what, do you think she’s cute or something?”

Dipper spluttered.

“I’ll have you know that I’m not interested in dating-”

“Sure, sure. That explains why you’re over here all the time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Everyone thinks you and Sam are dating, Tyrone. How are you this dense?”

Dipper stared.

“So we’re just going to move on from that before we forget we had a session at all. Hey, Ayala, did you bring your own dice or do you want to borrow my second set?” Sam intervened, before things could get messy.

“I’ve got my own, but thanks for the offer.”

Things eventually calmed back down. Dipper couldn’t stop looking at Ayala’s antlers, though. Thankfully, he could focus enough to pay attention to running the session. It was good, all things considered. He had created a murder mystery story, something which let each of the people in the party have their own moments to shine. Ayala’s druid had a creature pouch, which led to a highly amusing story where a giant weasel she had pulled from it ended up doing surgery when everyone else had failed medicine checks.

It even ended with a fight against the guy who had died, which didn’t make much sense until it was revealed that he had faked his own death for insurance fraud reasons. The fight had ended when Sam’s halfling rogue had managed to record an admission, Sazi’s gnome necromancer befriended him over shared financial fraud stories, and Silver’s tiefling bard had knocked him unconscious with a guitar.

It had been fun, basically.

Sazi and Devon hadn’t stayed too much longer afterwards, and Ayala had gotten roped into answering Silver’s questions about Gravity Falls for at least an hour. Meanwhile, Sam had pulled Dipper aside.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“’Cherries are trees’ ring a bell?”

“Oh- oh. That. I told you, she told you. Her antlers.”

“Okay, but trees and antlers are very different things.”

“I- I know that. It’s- it’s hard to explain I guess?”

It was kind of hard to explain. He didn’t really know why Henry’s reincarnations kept the antlers, and if he tried he’d probably fail.

Sam sighed. “If it becomes, like, a dangerous thing. To  _ anyone _ here. You’ll tell me what’s happening.”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, Sam, Tyrone! I’ve got to head back to the dorm. Maybe catch up next week?”

“That’d be awesome, Ayala!” Dipper called back. “See you around!”

“See you in class, Sam!”

“Yeah! Have a good weekend!”

“You too!”

Ayala left, and Dipper found himself really hoping she’d come back to the next session.


End file.
